SummaryField dependent individuals, who are characterized primitive, find it difficult to separate the figure‐ground relationship and consequently do poorly on embedded figure tests. Heroin addicts have also been described as being fixated at an early level of psychosexual development, using the more primitive avoidance defences. It was therefore hypothesized that addicts would be more field dependent on a perceptual disembedding task than non‐addicts. Also, although both groups should learn from practice on this task, non‐addicts will exhibit greater improvement than addicts. Thirty male addicts between the ages of 18 to 28 and an equated group of non‐addicts were administered Part 1 and Part 2 of the Hidden Figure Test cf‐1 with a 120 s interval between the parts. Both hypotheses were supported at the 0.001 level. However, these differences are not enough to distinguish addicts from other highly field dependent nosological groups. Also, additional research must be undertaken in order to understand the connection between this type of cognitive functioning and current low addict rehabilitat